If Bismarck North Dakota is not on your list of places to visit, you need to add it. This city has small town charm, but still offers many options to entertain the family. We found so much to do, if only we had more time to spend here. Read my ten reasons to visit Bismarck with your family.
It is situated directly on the 49th parallel only a short distance from the Geographical Center of the North American continent. This is on the borders of both North Dakota in the United States and Manitoba in Canada. You should visit the International Peace Garden not only for it’s beauty, but for what it symbolizes, peace between nations.
The idea to form a garden in the middle of the North American continent began in the late 1920’s. Canada and the United States wanted to do something to symbolize the peace between two nations which had existed from the beginning.
Finally, in 1932, the International Peace Garden was formally dedicated. The Civilian Conservation Corps began building structures in the garden, some of which can still be found there today. This unique place is a must visit location that stands for peace not only between the US and Canada, but, in hopes, for all nations.
Our travels have taken us to many amazing places and we have seen some interesting things along the way. Mississippi was no exception. LaFleur’s Bluff State Park was a very convenient place to stay while visiting the Jackson area.
Maintaining a vehicle is a necessary part of being a car owner. When you tow your house with that vehicle it becomes paramount. When setting up our budget I included vehicle maintenance. I didn’t include it into our travel plans though. Getting the windshield replaced can be tough when all you want to do is go hiking in a National Park! Not having a shop limits me though and I can only do some of the work.
Giving our children an education that they could never receive sitting in a classroom at a desk has been what our adventure is all about. There are so many amazing places to see and things to experience in this country that it makes homeschooling so easy. The best part about it is that we are learning all this great stuff together. We have now taken them to half of the state capitols in the country and to countless museums both large and small. The learning never stops and what I love is that my children are so excited about learning and tell me how much they like to learn new things; something I think every parent wants to hear. Our travels have recently brought us into the first of our New England states and we experienced another first which was visiting back to back state capitols. Most of these northern states are pretty small which made it easy for us to visit both Hartford and Providence from the same camp. We made our home in Connecticut for a week and explored the area.
I can honestly say that I never thought I would go to Delaware and wasn’t even sure what we would do while visiting the state. Well like every other state we have visited so far, Delaware didn’t disappoint us and we had a blast while visiting the nation’s very first state. We decided to stay at a state park that was south of Dover, since we knew we would be heading to Annapolis when we left. Killen’s Pond was almost full when we arrived and we took the last spot in the camp that our trailer could fit into. I was a bit worried over the camp because it was so full and the campsites were pretty close, but the next day was a Monday and we quickly had the entire loop to ourselves. The camp ground was not the best we have stayed out, which is ironic since they have signs saying Delaware state parks are the best in the United States. There was quite a lot of trash in our site though and we never saw anyone picking up the sites the entire time we stayed there. Every time I needed help at the entrance station it was a fiasco and the workers were struggling. The bathrooms were decent, but were operated with push buttons and anyone who has used this style of shower knows how annoying they are (especially when you have three kids to shower off). The location for seeing the capitol was very convenient being just a twenty minute trip into the city.
We loved our visit to the USS Texas in Houston and when we saw the USS Wisconsin was on the ASTC museum list we were excited to visit it. Unfortunately there was just too much to see in what is known as the Historic Triangle and we ran out of time. Our first trip out of camp found us at the NASA Air and Space Museum in Hampton, VA. We had wanted to visit a space museum in Texas and in Florida, but they were pretty expensive and we had to pass on them. Since it was on the ASTC list we decided that it would be our first stop, especially when the weather report showed rain everywhere else in the area except in Hampton. Well it turned out to be a great day to be at the museum. I was really impressed by the Apollo 12 Capsule on display and yes it is the actual capsule that went to the moon! Everyone really enjoyed the flight simulators and now we know that landing a spaceship is exceptionally 
difficult to do. The plane simulator was cool because it had a dozen rows of seats plus the windows were hooked into the computer program, so they showed what the pilot was doing, making it more realistic. Of course the kids really liked the cockpit with the thousand switches and buttons you would expect in an airplane. During our visit we also went to Mars in a simulation and got to see the inflatable structures that NASA is designing to build habitats on the red planet. From the Wright Brothers Flyer to Rockets this museum had everything you could imagine about space and flight. After half a day of learning though we were getting hungry, so we walked over to the marina and had a picnic where we could look at the yachts and sailboats. Journey wants to go sailing after we visit every state in the country, but that is a long way off.
